Good morning! It is a bacon and egg morning on the Unwinder. Up and ready to go wash clothes and explore Biscayne. We ate and called Ally to go with us,  and we all headed to the bus stop with our loads of dirty clothes to find the laundromat. Thank you West Marine for the blue fold up buggy that carries my dirty clothes and whatever. That thing is a lifesaver for us when we have to walk to our food stores and laundromats. OK we jumped in the dinghy, rode the waves, tied up at the dock got permission to leave it there for 2 hours and asked how far it was to Biscayne. We went to Biscayne on the bus Tuesday with Dan and Ally and we had to take the bus because the dockmaster told us it was one mile we walked one mile and guess what?! No Biscayne just a bridge and a cop that said it was 6 miles to the village of Biscayne!! Now you know why we take the bus. We figured out in Miami if you ask distance it usually is just a mile away so we figure 1 mile in Miami actually could mean 6-10 miles away. The dock master today said it was a mile or so but it was too far to walk. So we dont ask distance anymore we just take the bus if we have to. Welll we got off the bus and headed to the laundromat, guess what we went to the street we got directions to and the CVS pharmacy and was advised that there are not laundromats on the island. As we walked around back to the bus stop we saw why. These people obviously have their clothes cleaned (there are cleaners all over the city) and dont want the kind of people that a laundromat might bring!LOLOLOL Sooo we went to 7-11 and got lunch and ate outside the Golden Hog with Ally. The Golden Hog has healthy and gourmet foods and a food buffet witih wonderful dessert breads. So we figured out we take the bus back to the marina get in our dinghy and head to South Beach to the first laundromat Steve and I used when we first arrived. So here we go in the dingy over to the the publix dock in the waterway. We climbed up on the dock and headed down the street to the laundromat. Walking is becoming a way of life now that we dont have a car. While our clothes were washing we went to get lunch I actually saw a Panera bread!! I almost ran to it. Steve laughed at me for getting so excited. You dont know what youve got till its gone 🙂 Ally had checked out the blockbuster, Really! They still rent movies down here out of a store for 99 cents. Leaving the laundromat we walked to the Vespa store to check out the rides. They are nice but still would be a little awkward loading one into the dinghy and then locking it to the boat. I say we put a weedeater motor on a bicycle like the guy in Miami that raced past us on his motor/bike lol.  We decided to cook spaghetti for supper and stopped in at the Publix for supplies. Ok we over bought (why we werent surprised beats me) 🙂 We tried to take the buggy across the street but it had a mechanism that doesnt allow you to take it off the lot it locks up when you go from the parking lot to the street off the curb it slides over the front wheel and brings you and your groceries to a grinding halt! Ok now that my groceries have been slung to the front of the buggy and Ally and I are laughing hysterically as we tried to get the buggy across the street we could not so we backed it up with me holding the front of the buggy off the ground so it would roll. But then the back wheel tried to lock up so we left it and took all our groceries across the street. It is bad enough trying to get across a street in Miami it is a life or death situation. So here we go running across the street stopping in middle to wait on cars to go by and give us a break in traffic. Finally over to the dinghy now loaded with food laundry and three of us we climbed down into the dinghy since the tide had dropped a little more. We took off down the waterway to the main channel and home to our boats. I cooked spaghetti in my little square tin pan and my tiny skillet with spaghetti sauce. We went over to Allys and Dans to eat. Alley had the table sat with a beautiful salad and cheese and crackers. We watched a funny documentary and Justified the show. Learned how to look through a sextant and headed back home and to bed. We had a wonderful time. Goodnight everyone.

The most exciting thing we did today was make lunch and grill chicken for supper:-)). Slug day, hanging out and enjoying the day. The sun is shining the temp is in the high 70’s and we are going to enjoy just hanging out in the sun. I am sorry if i break some of the rules of penmanship and correct punctuation please forgive me. We have put off doing the laundry until tomorrow, I called to make sure there was a laundromat on our bus route in Biscayne. I was assured the coin laundry was across the street from the CVS pharmacy. I have been given so much misinformation i dont really like to ask people that live here. Not feeling Miami at all and will be happy to leave. People here are NOT friendly and very little help, rude, arrogant, ETC.. Glad we have our friends here to hang with. Although the skyline here is beautiful with all the buildings and lights. It is so bright here it never really gets dark in the bay. Well sorry not much to tell today stay tuned for tomorrow!

Good morning everyone we are moving today over to where Dan and Alley are anchored to get closer to our jumping point to Bahamas. We pulled up anchor fired up the engine and rolled out through the Miami  waterway area and passed several boats leaving the boat show. The radio all of a sudden blared out, “this is sailboat and i am stuck”. We stayed in the channel and had no problems but you would be amazed at the people that just dont pay attention until the boat comes to a sudden stop (and believe me It Is A Sudden STOP!) One of the sailboats did not make the show because he took a 65 foot mast under a 50 foot bridge! There are charts that tell you how tall the bridge is or you can get on radio to find out. We are very lucky our charts on chartplotter  have height printed on them of each bridge we go under. We did tweak that antenna on the mast coming under one bridge on Tin Tom 🙂 Whew! We got over to the anchorage where our buds were and we anchored out ( i may be getting fat but handling the anchor i have increased muscles and shoulder strength now). After getting settled we met up with our friends and went to the little restaurant called Atlantica, sort of a fish market and very nice restaurant. The owner came past the table and Dan said to him, what you got in that cooler? and he replied just caught stone crab. He opened up the cooler and showed us the fresh stone crab legs on ice. I did not realize that you dont kill the stone crab you hold on to his legs/pinchers until he lets loose of them and you can let him go without killing him. How cool is that!! But you have to get both pinchers because if he has one the other crabs will fight him and kill him, but if he has none they will leave him alone. They used to just take one by law and had to change it to taking both due to the declining population of stone crabs. They figured out the other crabs were killing the one clawed crabs that couldnt defend themselves. Steve ordered the crab and i had the coconut shrimp. They brought us a free order of fish cooked only with lemon juice (pickled), it was amazingly good! There is fish called a hogfish that is wonderful it has a hog face and teeth like tusks sticking out from top and bottom of its mouth, and is reddish in color. We had a great time and went back to the dinghy to get back to boat. Dan had to get up early and we want to go explore and wash clothes tomorrow. Getting in to the dinghy has become and art with very precise actions, lol. I have to jump in almost because one leg on the boat and one leg on the dock only gets you a pulled hamstring. Dont even ask me how I know :-0. So after getting into the dinghy we took off at a high rate of speed ( as fast as our 2 hp will go). We have started looking at bigger boat motors, our dinghy will accept a 15 HP engine, so Steve being Steve, is looking for a dinghy that will handle significantly more HP. Watch out for a new event, “dinghy races”. Could be the next big ESPN  sport, lol. Could be awesome, you never know! Well time to go to sleep so we can dream of a faster dinghy and perfect gulf stream weather.

Today we got up and decided to just slug out. So Steve read Floyds book : “The Saga of the Sailing HIllbillys”. It is so good. I decided to catch up on the blog and sleep. Steve left for the boat show to pick up our new mast climber and hang out, I wanted to stay at the boat and work on some of my projects i have started. The weather is still somewhat cool and windy. I hope everyone has had a good day. When i get free wi fi i will download pictures being anchored out i have to use my hotspot and downloading images uses up too many of my GB. Stay tuned everyone i am catching up!

Steve’s friend JJ called this morning and he and his wife Patty are coming over to the dock Steve is gonna pick them up and bring them to the boat. Steve dinghied over and picked them up when they arrived and we had a wonderful visit and Patty suggested we eat at a place called Flanigans `which had some wonderful ribs and a delicious chocolate oreo twix chocolate syrup ice cream brownie dessert. We went toward the south beach area but the traffic was so thick and there was nowhere to park. I got to see Steve’s old school area and his house down here. JJ and Patty came back to the boat and hung out a while and headed back to the dock. They are really great people and i hope we get to see them again before we go to the Bahamas. Steve and I had leftover ribs and went to bed to listen to the howling winds blowing our halyard around and swaying to the waves. This boat is so peaceful at night and the stars look so pretty. Goodnight everyone!

Today we will go to the Boat show (another part oPf it) at the convention center. This boat show is power boats, fishing supplies, huge engines with drug runner horsepower and plenty of product booths. We met our friends in their dinghy, although his has 30 horsepower to our two LOL. They went down the canal to check out the stores and places to dock while Steve and I hit the boat show, we tied off the dinghy to a tree and locked it. The show was unreal with all the boats inside and outside. It took us all day to get through it with its 4 dollar drinks and 9 dollar personal pizzas. We had a great time and enjoyed all the exhibits and finally headed home with three bags of freebies and one new device to climb the mast and put sail back on. I cooked Tacos and we watched some TV before going to bed. Steve contacted his friend from childhood and they are going to come see us tomorrow. I cant wait. Everyone have a good night.

Steve and I woke up early got breakfast cooked, waited on the guy to bring our head sail back from being repaired. We went to the dock at the yacht club to get sail and take a shower. When i came back to the dinghy to meet Steve i was advised by to men that we were at a private dock and not allowed there. I am telling you Miami is not a friendly place due to overcrowding or what i dont care. people dont have to be so -well you know. So Steve and i took our dinghy and went to the next marina dock across the bay. They told us it was 10 dollars for 2 hours and that they didnt have dinghy room due to the part of the boat show at the marina. Well we just drove our dinghy over to the sailboat show and parked at the wall next to the personal yachts and climbed up on the wall the show. Yeah we finally found a  place to park. Where there is a will there is a way. The sailboat show was unreal, all the beautiful boats. We saw our friend Clay there who we met at Clearwater when we were there. He has a pit bull named Nelda and she is so sweet! He showed us all the Hunter sailboats, he works for Hunter.

Got up early cooked breakfast, and got ready to go ashore to find a person to fix our headsail. We dinghied over to a dock and called several places and found one that would come and get the sail fix it and bring it back. WOW a friendly person in Miami, i thought i would faint. After that Steve and I took a 30 minute dinghy ride to find Publix and the laundromat. We crossed in front of the small islands with all the huge houses over to a small canal opening between the condos and headed down to the dock we were told was in front of the Publix. Going down a small canal we saw crab pot buoys. That was funny actually in the canal. So we went under small overpasses that almost touched our heads and found a small dock across the street from the Publix. We asked directions to the laundromat and proceeded to walk down the street toward South Beach to find it.We found it finally with plenty of cute places to eat lunch beside it. The laundromat was clean and the dryers were so very hot. Steve had to go back to the big dock to meet the guy picking up our sail back and I stayed to do laundry and eat lunch at a cute bagel place. The staff was OK not really friendly at all. I really cant wait to get out of Miami. I got the clothes washed headed back the 4 blocks to the Publix to call Steve and do the shopping. The sail guy was late so i had to wait an hour on Steve before shopping. He arrived and we got our grocery shopping done without realizing how the wind had kicked up. The waves got some of the cardboard wet and i had to throw away the cardboard boxes and save the packs of food on the inside. Needless to say we were also soaked, luckily the clothes were tied up in bags tight and didnt get wet. We dried off and ate a spaghetti supper and fell asleep. The boats are nonstop around here and so is the auto traffic. I love the wind rocking us to sleep though. Good night evreyone.

Steve and i sailed today with just the mainsail and it worked really well. Loving the breezes and the beautiful ocean. It is a wonderful day to be on the water. Getting close to Biscayne Bay Floyd called us we changed direction to go through Angelfish Creek. That was a nice little cut thru to Biscayne Bay and on to Miami. Just a little sail and we were in sight of the city. Working hard with the lines for the boom tacking back and forth until we reached the bridge. Learning so much about sailing these days and getting used to all the waves and heeling over to the rub rail. Sailing is not boring at all! And it is actually only for the strong and confident. I will never underestimate sailors. Going in to Miiami under the bridges we found the water is very shallow in the beginning of the water way to the anchorage we were going to. Passed the marina where the sailboats were for the boat show. The cruise ships are all in the harbor awaiting their departures for the islands.Hopefully the other Carnival ships make it. We found a spot to anchor behind the Miami Yacht club. On the other side of the yacht club are a lot of beautiful houses.One of them has those green glowing lights under their dock, looks like a Stephen King movie effect. 🙂 The city has a beautiful skyline. We got ready to go over to Floyd and Elaines for a few minutes, they had to anchor their boat in another place because it would not hold where We had a great time hanging out with them and talking sailing and boats. Afterwards we went to our boat and enjoyed the beautiful sky and lights of Miami. Will spend time tomorrow washing clothes and buying groceries. Should be an adventure. Goodnight everyone!

Headed out to Miami with our friends Floyd and Elaine; and Dan and Alley. Started out with a great wind and a beautiful day to sail. Floyd is a seasoned captain and took off at a fast sail toward Rodriguez key. We stayed with Dan and Alley in their boat “HIATUS”. Headed out into the wind with the boat heeled over on the port side sun in our faces perfect weather and wind no problems, that should have been my first clue! Looking at the headsail it seemed something was just not right when about that time the headsail decided to fall detaching itself from the halyard, we had to move quick to wrap it up before it fell all the way down at which point it would have been a god awful mess. We got her wrapped and Steve had to bungie cord it in the middle to prevent it flapping in the wind. We sailed in with just a reefed sail and motor running. I had the helm and almost missed the entrance to Rodriguez Key. Steve took the helm and we went into the key and anchored close to our friends boats. Instead of having to get the dinghy off the bow we split up and rode one with Floyd and one with Dan into the restaurant to eat. We had to walk up a rikkrty ramp to the dock and then into the restaurant. The restaurant had plastic drop walls with a bar area and tables overlooking the ocean. The food was great and the company was even more so. We enjoyed our meal and headed back to the boat with Dan and Alley to watch a movie with the Rock in it. We loved it and had a wonderful time. Dan and Alley have a wonderful boat with so much character and beautiful on the inside with a lot of room to be comfortable. Plus it is the only boat i have been on with a widescreen TV. 🙂 After the movie Dan took us back to the boat and we fell asleep to the sound of the waves lapping against the boat.